Everything sizzles and pops around you. Steam floats into the night sky like aromatic clouds carrying scrumptious smells of marvelous treats like various meats, or grilled vegetables, or spicy soups — all to the song from a lute; cracked leather-like fingers pluck the instrument, that long necked worn cherry-colored lute called the sueng, releasing a melody of ting-tang-tong-tang-ting to add sweet soundtracks amongst the chitter-chatter of the throngs. Here and there and everywhere is food porn galore. From spicy papaya salad to buttered garlic bread, pork balls and chicken balls (not testes) to… Read More

There is still a bad taste in my mouth. No, it isn’t from the beef on a stick which turned out to be liver that I had eaten for lunch in the market in Mae Sai this day. That bad taste in my mouth was from an experience that happened on my recent visa run in Thailand. An experience that may have very well tainted the country for me and my desire to return to teach English. Confusion spun in my head, which eventually began to boil into anger. I was… Read More

Something felt off. Well, I felt off. But I could have never guessed what would come later, possibly in connection with the way I had felt the entire day after arriving in Chiang Mai. And then I looked up from my sandwich in a Subway in Chiang Mai to see the glass before me shaking violently and the concrete walls of the building I was in shift back and forth. “What the fuck?” I said with a mouthful of chicken teriyaki. I looked up and it seemed as though the world… Read More

Pai is a small town in the far north of Thailand and a place I escape to nearly every month from Chiang Mai. Besides being a hippy enclave, there are outdoor activities abound; surrounded by mountains on most sides, waterfalls everywhere you look, and more than a handful of different geothermal hot pools. Another “hidden” piece of Pai that makes it amazing is Pai Canyon, considered to be the Grand Canyon of Thailand. The canyon itself isn’t nearly as vast as the world wonder in Arizona, but it is quite impressive…. Read More

Here’s an experience of my own in Thailand that stuck in my head for weeks, and an experience that should teach everyone a lesson. The gears of the rusted motorbike clanked as he up-shifted and changed lanes, cruising down the canal loop that rings the outside of Chiang Mai’s old town. I was clinging on to the back, jolting every time the gear changed and the bike had a seizure. Besides the fact that my ass was close to slipping off the back of the bike, I had a pit in… Read More

The fiery red protrusion on the back of my hand pulsated and throbbed like an angry volcano on the verge of erupting through the two dark holes in its peak — I had been bitten by a bulbous and shiny and demented creepy crawly something that could only have been birthed from the darkest corner of Hell. No, it was a sickness. A sickness that began with a hoarse cough, like a raspy old hound barking his last warning, the shaking cold sweats consumed me more than the dry Thailand… Read More

There I was…staring at the gray lint from the inside of my pocket with a peppering of beach sand, a beer bottle cap, and twenty New Zealand dollars in my palm — my bank account had a dismal twenty-six U.S. dollars in it. Reality came over me like a mule hind-kicking me in the gonads, I had completely run out of money in a foreign country and my travel noob ass was just realizing it. Or that time I came back into my hostel room to find the bare bottom… Read More

Though I have no political affiliation to any country in the world, including my home country (I hate politics) the political protests in Thailand had overshadowed the media and my trip ever since I arrived in Thailand. The moment I landed in Bangkok mid-November, the town square was swarmed with thousands of protesters supporting or attempting to overthrow the current government — which made it fucking hell for getting around town too. One day, before the protests (as seen on some news outlets) began including guns and explosives and riots,… Read More

Dear Live Gnarly Army, I wanted to send out a digital postcard today to apologize to you my friends and readers of this blog. This article touches mainly upon last week’s newsletter which was the first I’ve sent out in over a month — the last one being around New Years. That newsletter stated goals I wanted to accomplish; writing much more often on the blog, keeping up this newsletter on a weekly basis, and starting my book which I hope to publish this year. It also touches upon… Read More

This weeks photo mojo comes from Pai, Thailand. Under the shadow of the mountains near Memorial Bridge, a local Thai man crafted bamboo rafts by hand. I stood there on that old iron bridge over that trickling river watching this man wrap and tighten twine around massive bamboo shoots. Weekly Photo Mojo is about stimulating your cortex with retina rupturing and awe-inspiring photos from around the world to help you reach Terminal Vicariosity (The point where the mind reaches maximum capacity from living vicariously through someone else, and chooses to… Read More

It has begun. I am in school. And even though I ranted about not being in a school classroom for eight years, it’s still crazy for me to say… I’ll be breaking down my experience in the TEFL training course into multiple blog posts over the next few weeks to give you a good insight into what it is like. When the woman Susan who helps run the UniTEFL program in Chiang Mai first sat down with me to tell me about the program, she also stated that the course… Read More

As I was exploring the outskirts of Pai, Thailand on motorbike we came to Memorial Bridge which spanned a shallow rippling river. There was a moment where I felt as though I had traveled back in time as a mock soldier in a vintage uniform, holding a sword, marched down the wooden planks. To add to the scene, at the end of a bridge a young man chatted with a woman in a flowing white dress and an old tricycle sat idle nearby. Weekly Photo Mojo is about stimulating your… Read More

“A high school dropout who had a chip on his shoulder and resented his teachers is now becoming a teacher…” I said. My friend Zach chuckled at the irony. It was so strange making that statement, yet so exhilarating. BECAUSE IT IS OFFICIAL! I have finally signed up for my training and I begin Monday! When this trip began in early December, I knew one of my goals was to come to Southeast Asia to teach English. Ever since I left the confines of the that dystopian education system where… Read More

Welcome to Moh Paeng waterfall, otherwise known as the “sliding waterfall” where the rocks are smooth and made slick by the flowing stream and waterfall cutting right through them — allowing you to slide all the way down into the lower pools of water. Immerse yourself in this panoramic photo bubble and explore the falls. *WARNING* There may or may not be disfigured captures of friends as they tried to mess with my bubble. For computer users: Take your mouse and move it around the bubble. For mobile users:… Read More

There was a fight at my hostel tonight in Pai, Thailand. An older Scotsman (45ish) who has been staying at the hostel for the past 6 months has grown a kind of “I run this place” ego over every other traveler and backpacker, as well as grown a disdain for humankind — which usually seeps out after a few glasses of whiskey. He always loftily tells tales, true or tall tales, about such things as being let off by police for having the highest ranking shaman of a country come… Read More

There was a point somewhere between hour 8 and hour 10 that a small insanity took hold of me. Or at least it seemed so. A fourteen hour bus from Bangkok to Phuket would normally be manageable. If surviving a 99 hour train journey across the United States was possible, surely this would be a walk in some metaphorical park. Bangkok to Chiang Mai had already been done, a trip about 12 hours, except there were factors that kept my already zany brain from falling down the rabbit hole. Somebody… Read More

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hatever you want to call them; Ghosts or spirits or just hopeful nostalgia playing mind games with a person who yearns for a long gone sentimental period in life — I’ve experienced something multiple times throughout my life. Something otherworldly. Something I couldn’t quite see or touch, but something I could feel in the pit of my stomach or on the hairs of my neck that stand at attention. Thousands of miles away from any semblance of scar or soul searing experience from my past, they still found me on… Read More